[Duckrow]

I upgraded to .42 and have hit a snag. When trying to set the folder for saving tracks I go to Browse and get /store/ Then select and I get uncaught exception Permission denied OK.
So I downgraded to .41. It at first gave something like Store/home/user/pictures but then the exception message, now I just get /store/ followed by the exception message.
My OS etc are
BlackBerryxxx8482; 8700
Wireless Handheld (EDGE)
v4.2.1.101 (Platform 2.3.0.81)
Cryptographic Kernel v3.8.4.34
MicroEdition Configuration: CLDC-1.1
MicroEdition Profile: MIDP-2.0
MicroEdition JTWI Version: 1.0
MicroEdition Media Version: 1.1
MicroEdition PIM Version: 1.0
MicroEdition File Version: 1.0
I may try and downgrade this.

[am_bb8800]

Spotted Track My Journey on the web and thought it was of interest. It doesn't seem to work on the BB 8800 in Oz and it looks like it may be for a dedicated UK network. I't a same as the I/F looks good.

TrackMyJourney - Live GPS Tracking

[dlpisgreat]

Saua, I took your application for a plane trip this past weekend. Something to look at is the scale. It seemed to stay at 0 to 5 miles for the longest time, before it changed to 0 to 100 miles or something like that.

Are there other increments available or do you just set it for own scale?

I can supply the track if you need it.

[saua]

Originally Posted by dlpisgreat

Saua, I took your application for a plane trip this past weekend. Something to look at is the scale. It seemed to stay at 0 to 5 miles for the longest time, before it changed to 0 to 100 miles or something like that.

Are there other increments available or do you just set it for own scale?

I can supply the track if you need it.

The scale at which the path is drawn is choosen by a very simple algorithm: Select the biggest scale where the entire path fits on the display (plus some margin so that it looks nice).

Then it tries to fit the biggest scale at the bottom that has a "round" number (round being arbitarily defined as 1, 5, 10, 50, 100, ...)

If you see it jump from 5 to 100 then there is indeed a bug. Does the scale at the bottom left get very small when it stays at 5 all the time? Since you're flying I assume you're using the nautical miles for display. The .bbt file might help reproduce this.

[dlpisgreat]

ok, here is the BBT. I didn't put the application into Nautical Miles. I was just a passenger on a jetliner. Had a window seat so I could track it. Just noticed that the scale didn't really seem to adjust.

[infinus]

It sounds more to me like you had lost the GPS signal so it wasn't tacking and adding any new points, then it picked it up again suddenly and the scale jumped because you had moved so far. I tried this out on a plane once and it updated a little spotty. I also found that the 8800 has a limitation on what altitude it could report.

[RboarderI]

What should I set my directory as if I do not have an SD Card?

[saua]

Originally Posted by RboarderI

What should I set my directory as if I do not have an SD Card?

Select the directory item and choose "Browse" from the menu. There should be at least one item at the lowest level named "store" or similar. That's the built-in memory. Choose any directory from in there.

[Stinsonddog]

Any updates on timing for 5.0 with the updated summary screen. Used it again for todays ride. Thanks.

[pshute]

I'm testing v 0.4.2. Here are my initial comments:
- a help option might be good to get people going. Mention things like shortcut keys and any other common questions.
- when I press the Back key when I'm in Options, it should really prompt before discarding any changes.
- not sure of the value of this, but could you display the current direction to the nearest 0.5 degrees instead of the nearest degree?
- when quitting from the program, it asks "Cancel/Quit?". The default is Cancel, but normally I'd want to Quit. Could you change the default? Most other Blackberry programs would offer the options Yes or No, and I would be able to press Y or N. It would be nice to be standard.
- while tracking, the display shows, E, N, speed, direction, height, time since start, total distance so far and tracking point number. While playing back, it's the same, but the distance is always the total. Could you display the distance to that point *and* the total?
- The change notes say "add shortcuts to jump to first ('7','s') and last ('9','e') track point". On an 8800, 2 is on the E key, and 4 is on the S key.
- I'd like the option to display a previous track while recording a new one. This is so that I can either follow a previous path, or find my way back to the start. I guess you'd need another colour on there to distinguish the two tracks.
- It might be useful to be able to load a track, then continue tracking on it. This would be useful on multi-day trips, where you might need to close the application overnight, but continue the next day.

Other than that, it looks very good. (It's not spyware is it?)

[pshute]

More ideas:
- When switching between views, the view title remains visible for 5 seconds. It often obscures information under it. I realise this is to save screen space - could you make that delay shorter?
- When scrolling between tracking points in the views that support this, I need to scroll the ball (8800) sideways to go from point to point. Scrolling up or down jumps by 10 points. That's a good feature, but what happens is that as I scroll sideways, occasionally the ball moves up or down just enough to make it jump. Is it possible to disable the jumping if the ball is moving sideways at the same time?
- Where there are shortcuts available for menu items, could you display them in the menu?
- Where there are shortcuts, but no menu items (e.g. E and S) could you add menu items? These last two suggestions are to help people learn the program faster.

[saua]

Originally Posted by Stinsonddog

Any updates on timing for 5.0 with the updated summary screen. Used it again for todays ride. Thanks.

Development is not as fast as I'd like currently and there are some medium-to-major features planned for 0.5, so it will take some more time. On the up-side: if I find a few consecutive hours to work on bbTracker, that might as well be everything that I require ...

I hope that the waiting for 0.5.0 will be worth it for you all.

[John Clark]

Looking forward to being able to use it with the buggy RIM bluetooth issue.

[saua]

Originally Posted by pshute

I'm testing v 0.4.2. Here are my initial comments:
- a help option might be good to get people going. Mention things like shortcut keys and any other common questions.

Yes, I think bbTracker is slowly getting complex enough for this. This is also an excellent way for anyone wanting to contribut, who thought "What can I do? I can't do any programming". Programmers are notoriously bad at writing documentation (possibly because you just can't compile it and check if it's correct ), so I'd appreciate any help I could get here.

- when I press the Back key when I'm in Options, it should really prompt before discarding any changes.

hm ... probably a good idea

- not sure of the value of this, but could you display the current direction to the nearest 0.5 degrees instead of the nearest degree?

I don't know if I get

- when quitting from the program, it asks "Cancel/Quit?". The default is Cancel, but normally I'd want to Quit. Could you change the default? Most other Blackberry programs would offer the options Yes or No, and I would be able to press Y or N. It would be nice to be standard.

I probably could change the default. The problem is, that the escape key activates it and <Escape><Scrollbutton> is a combination that can easily be pressed accidentally.

The reason I'd like to avoid "YES/NO" is that those are generic answers where you have to read the question to know what they mean and one major rule of user interface design is "Users don't read message boxes" or more broadly: "Users don't read"

- while tracking, the display shows, E, N, speed, direction, height, time since start, total distance so far and tracking point number. While playing back, it's the same, but the distance is always the total. Could you display the distance to that point *and* the total?

I've thought about that. The distance is currently the only display that always displays the total. I'm probably switching that for 0.5.0. The total distance will be shown on the status screen.

- The change notes say "add shortcuts to jump to first ('7','s') and last ('9','e') track point". On an 8800, 2 is on the E key, and 4 is on the S key.

That means that the keys '7' and 's' are valid shurtcuts. For the 8800 you'll probably always use 's', as you'll have to press <Alt><y> (or <Alt><z> for Querty BBs) to push '7'. The '7' and '9' shortcuts are for 8100 and other mobile phones without a full keyboard.

- I'd like the option to display a previous track while recording a new one. This is so that I can either follow a previous path, or find my way back to the start. I guess you'd need another colour on there to distinguish the two tracks.

That's a good idea and shouldn't be too hard to implement. But since 0.5.0 is already late and full of new stuff, it'll have to way a bit longer.

- It might be useful to be able to load a track, then continue tracking on it. This would be useful on multi-day trips, where you might need to close the application overnight, but continue the next day.

In my opinion each day would be a seperate track, wouldn't it? I'm not convinced that this is a necessary feature (the problem with features is that once you've got too many a program becomes unusable).

Other than that, it looks very good. (It's not spyware is it?)

I'm happy you like it. Of course it's not spyware (or any kind of malware). You don't even have to trust me on this, you can look at the source code and see for yourself. Currently bbTracker doesn't ever make any data connections at all. It stays totally local to your BlackBerry.

- When switching between views, the view title remains visible for 5 seconds. It often obscures information under it. I realise this is to save screen space - could you make that delay shorter?

Yes, I'm not too happy with that myself. I'll probably make the delay shorter and possible place the title in the top right corner, where it obscures less information.

- When scrolling between tracking points in the views that support this, I need to scroll the ball (8800) sideways to go from point to point. Scrolling up or down jumps by 10 points. That's a good feature, but what happens is that as I scroll sideways, occasionally the ball moves up or down just enough to make it jump. Is it possible to disable the jumping if the ball is moving sideways at the same time?

The program doesn't see the track ball, but just a series of key presses "Left, Left, Left, Left, Up, Left, Left, ...". I might filter out keypresses that are different from those sent only milliseconds before another ... I'll have to experiment with this wether it's good or it makes the application feel clumsy (such filtering can go wrong).

- Where there are shortcuts available for menu items, could you display them in the menu?

Good idea... I'll see what I can do.

- Where there are shortcuts, but no menu items (e.g. E and S) could you add menu items? These last two suggestions are to help people learn the program faster.

This might be a good idea, but I probably wont add <up>, <down>, <left>, <right> as that would fill the menu with items that noone will want to activate via the menu.

Thanks a lot for your suggestions, those help bbTracker get better!

I'll probably add most of them to the issue tracking system, where you can follow their state (you could also add some yourself if you wanted).

[pshute]

Originally Posted by saua

I'm happy you like it. Of course it's not spyware (or any kind of malware). You don't even have to trust me on this, you can look at the source code and see for yourself. Currently bbTracker doesn't ever make any data connections at all. It stays totally local to your BlackBerry.

Thanks. I'm interested to look at the code, but I don't know where to start. If I follow that link there are branches everywhere and I don't know which one(s) to look at.

[saua]

Originally Posted by pshute

Thanks. I'm interested to look at the code, but I don't know where to start. If I follow that link there are branches everywhere and I don't know which one(s) to look at.

bbTracker is split into two projects, as you've seen "bbtracker" and "bbtracker_common". bbtracker is the code that only goes into the cell phone application and bbtracker_common is that code, which could be shared between the cell phone application and a possible future Desktop companion software (no, I won't promise anything )

Both of those projects have different sub-folders in them. "trunk" is always the latest development version. "branches" is currently empty, as no seperate versions are developed and "tags" contains one directory for each release version.

So if you want to look at the code that is currently being developed then look into "bbtracker/trunk" and "bbtracker_common/trunk".

If you want to see what went into 0.4.2 then look at "bbtracker/tags/release_0_4_2" and "bbtracker_common/tags/release_0_4_2".

Currently there aren't any major differences between trunk and tags/release_04_2 as I haven't commited any of my work, yet.

(Btw, that's pretty much a default subversion setup, you can look at the subversion book to learn more).

[pshute]

In no particular order:
- The speed displayed while tracking appears to be the average speed since starting (I think). While interesting, the current speed is also of interest. Could that be displayed too? I see "current" speeds when I view old tracks.
- In Track View, the scale bar can obscure part of the track. There should be a little gap.
- If I go into the Blackberry's Options/Advanced/GPS and tell it to Refresh GPS, it returns the location, the accuracy and the number of satellites used. The accuracy might be useful information to display in bbTracker, as it can explain those meanderings I see. Don't know if vertical acccuracy is obtainable. If so, that could be useful too, as in my experience the height varies wildly, even while I'm standing still.
- I noticed in the change notes that it says "try to reset and re-request the LocationProvider when GPS fails". I'm interested in what this means. Does this have anything to do with being unable to get coords for a long time sometimes in other applications? If so, I'd be interested to be able to see a count of these resets.
- I'm wondering if it would be useful to filter out any points less than, say, 10m from the previous point. I noticed that if I stay still for a while, it still records quite a bit of distance. I assume this is due to the accuracy variations, and this (option?) might fix it.
- When I exit from the application, it plays a little chiming noise. Could this be optional? I can understand that we need a warning if we accidentally try to close it during tracking, but it isn't needed after playback.
- On my 8800 I get a menu if I press the Menu button, but not if I press the ball. Other applications often show it for both.
- When I go to load a track, they appear to be in random order, although the most recent has always been on top so far. Chronological order would be good, with most recent at the top.
- Someone else asked for zooming - I second that.
- The scale bar appears to be wrong. It looks like the numbers on them should be doubled. I'm using metric.
- It would be useful to be able to see the current time and battery level. The latter as a percentage would be fine. Maybe the signal strength too, but that hasn't worried me yet.

[pshute]

- When loading tracks, it could be useful to display the size of the file beside each track. That would give an indication of the number of the points in the file, which will often help the user decide which track to select. Even better, display the number of points or the duration or distance.
- I've noticed my battery going flat faster than it used to, and I assume it's because I've been playing with this. Has anyone tried increasing the time between tracking points to see if increases battery life? It's slightly difficult to test, because other things affect battery life, and they can't always be controlled. Does the GPS get actually switched off between points?

[1badss]

has anyone gotten it to work on a 7520. I know if most likely will not work on my old turd of a BB

[saua]

Originally Posted by 1badss

has anyone gotten it to work on a 7520. I know if most likely will not work on my old turd of a BB

0.4.2 might or might not work, depending on your OS version. 0.5.0 will probably have a better chance of running on this device, when it's released.